


Early Snowfall

by missema



Series: Kirkwall Tech [14]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Hand Jobs, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Kirkwall Tech, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Content, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 09:56:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: Early snowfall has come to Kirkwall and Melissa goes to see Sebastian after an important discussion the night before. What she finds isn't what she expected, but a house full of Sebastian's brothers, engineers with too much time on their hands and Sebastian's determined to make sure she had a good night.





	Early Snowfall

He wasn't quite sure when he started expecting her to come to stay at the house with him, but Sebastian wasn't the only one. It occurred to him that he was waiting for Melissa to come home, or at least stop by, so he could talk to her. Kirkwall was in the middle of an early cold snap, during an unusually short autumn, and it felt like the cold season was encroaching on bounds it had no business being near yet. He had no love for winter at all, which was probably why Sebastian had spent a large portion of his day thinking about the return of warm weather. This summer in particular, and what he’d do after graduation.

There was some excitement at the KSE house that night; a large glass tube was liberated from an old storage room in the science building, and his brothers built a giant bong. Or they were in the process of assembling it. They'd found a gallon glass jug that the pipe fit securely onto the top, and he'd drilled a hole in the side for the downstem and bowl. It had taken a couple trips to the head shop and one to the hardware store, but it looked like all the pieces were finally ready. It would actually be quite a good bong, for all that the main tube was three feet long and it was going to take some monster lungs to get the smoke up. That and a lot of weed, but he was more than certain that wasn't going to be a problem to procure.

He was in the living room with most of the rest of the house when she texted him, his classes well past done for the day, as she informed him she was still on campus. Sebastian asked her if she wanted a ride over, but Lissa declined. He told her to head over when she got the chance, they were all just sitting around. They were, but it wasn't like a normal night of homework and dinner, his brothers were excited. They were a house full of engineers with a project, everyone was there. He was overseeing it, in his role of civil engineer and president, because Sebastian had to see if it was going to work. He didn't smoke much anymore, but it still happened from time to time, especially living in the house. Truth be told, it made him feel like a maudlin, ignored teenager, like he should be listening to old music and sneaking people into the palace, and there were times when he didn't want to relive those memories. But building a giant bong, that was just a project, and he could happily help with that.

"Hawke!" Someone in the room with him shouted her name and Sebastian turned to see her, unable to prevent the smile that crossed his face as he did.

Melissa came in at the tail end of construction, when they were testing it to make sure the pieces all worked together. She was wearing an overlarge hoodie over a shirt and leggings, and carrying her messenger bag with all of her hair pulled up into a messy bun. If she'd been home at all since morning, it had been a brief stop. The cold outside had brought color to the end of her nose and cheeks. She looked adorable, and he rose to greet her.

"There's a problem on the board, Hawke, goddess of mathematics," Canoe called out to her, and she turned down the hall towards it in answer. There was a wall painted with blackboard paint leading to the coatroom, and it was where they wrote problems they needed help with, questions about classes or just general requests for help, such as "Does anyone have jumper cables?" and the like. The point was for the brothers to help each other, and they did mostly, but this year Melissa wound up answering the bulk of the calculus problems. Someone had written the words "Supplemental book for Ethics and the Environment. Page 369 discussion questions 1-6" on it, which resulted in a bunch of comments of 'nice' written below it. He chuckled as he walked past it.

Sebastian made to follow her to the mathematics related end of the blackboard hallway, abandoning his front-row seat to the testing of the bong. She was already erasing much of the work that had been done beneath the problem. He watched her, admiring everything the leggings covered and the hoodie didn't. She took a step back to look at the problem once she'd erased the work that had already been attempted on the board.

"Take the derivative first, then try again," was all she wrote underneath it, then stood back and shook her head. She put the chalk and eraser back on the stool where they usually sat, and finally turned around to see him.

"Who did this one?" she asked him without turning around.

"Canoe."

"Ah. He’s terrible at calculus, bless his heart. I've always wondered how'd he get that nickname?"

"Because his ex got angry at him one night and wrote "douche canoe" on his chest in self tanner while he slept. Took weeks to get back to normal. We have pictures."

"Maker's breath," she said, laughing loudly. She smiled and as he reached for her just as a rowdy cheer went up in the living room.

"What's going on?" she asked. He diverted her attention before she could look into the common room with a kiss, and then another. Sebastian kissed her cold, soft lips until they were plenty warm and then explained.

With a nod down the hallway he said, "They must have gotten it to work. We're building a very large water bong, made from some glass tubing that was, ahem, acquired, earlier today."

Melissa laughed again, because she never took them too seriously, the sound of her light giggle nearly drowned out by the noise of voices coming from the other room. He made to go in that direction, but Melissa stayed in one place, and since she was holding his hand, he stopped when she didn't move forward. Sebastian turned back to her, and though she was still smiling at him, it wasn’t quite the same as before. Now there was a light in her eyes that was hard to misunderstand, and even the biggest bong on campus wasn’t enough to tear him away.

"We were having a conversation last night," she said, and pulled him further from the common room. They were on the other side of the door, near the alcove where they hung coats and stored the snow shovels. Melissa rested almost casually against the wall, and instinctively, he followed her movement, leaning in towards her.

They did have a memorable conversation last night, and he didn't need her prompting to recall it. The smile she gave him now was leading, a confident glint in her eye. Sebastian came closer, and he felt himself smile back at her. He knew this dance so well, but he had yet to run through all the steps with Melissa. She put her bag on the floor next to them, slipping it off and carefully setting it down. There was a moment of doubt that crossed his mind, but then she unzipped her hoodie, but it was quashed as he watched the zipper as if his life depended upon that tiny piece of metal.

It was a simple thing, not sensual at all, no seduction of her wearing something scanty beneath. She had on leggings and a long sleeved t-shirt, but when she unzipped the front of her hoodie and Sebastian knew it for the invitation that it was. He closed the small gap between them and caught her in a kiss. The second his lips touched hers, heat fueled by anticipation conjured a frantic energy between them. His hip pinned hers to the wall and Sebastian felt her rake a hand in his hair before pulling him closer. Her mouth obligingly opened at his first prompting, and then Lissa took control of this kiss, to his extreme delight. Her tongue was in his mouth and demanding, hot and wild, and he moaned softly into her mouth. He could feel himself getting hard very quickly, just from a few kisses. He had to take a breath just to get himself under control, but this wasn’t the time for him to just abandon what was in store. When he kissed her again, he started on her neck and went slowly, keeping his kisses light.

"Can you see the common room?" he asked, his voice a soft breath in her ear.

"Yes. Fabian is directly in my sight line. He could see us, if he looked directly down the hall."

"He won't."

"Then what are you waiting for?" she asked.

He moved, just a little, not to stop her from seeing down the hall but so he could keep her from being seen, if someone happened down it. It was unlikely, but he did it anyway. Sebastian was much larger, taller and wider than Melissa, so he made a fine shield. Still, he could be quick about what they were up to. Sebastian slid his hand down the front of her leggings, kissing her all the while. His hand stopped between her legs, finding his way. It would be easier if they were laying down, but that wasn't really the point of this, was it? He pulled back just a little to angle himself correctly, so no one down the hall could see where he’d put his hands.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, and he nodded. Lissa was really asking if he wanted to stop, but he was fine if she was. Then he touched her, sliding a finger up and down her slit, gently getting his fingers into the the right places. Sebastian kissed her deeply, drawing it out, the hand in her pants steadily teasing, mimicking what his tongue was doing to hers, what it wanted to do between her legs.

She shuddered against his fingertips and he broke their kiss, focused on what she’d said she wanted last night when they’d talked. It had been a shame she hadn’t been there, he could have done this at least ten times while he had the pledges lined up in the hall, reciting the words of the KSE credo, but his duties to KSE had been the reason why she hadn’t been with him. Tonight, he was freed from responsibility and he’d spent a whole night thinking of how to give her exactly what she wanted in as many ways as possible. This was a fantasy for both of them, and something he hadn’t know he wanted until she shared her desires with him. He felt her gasp again and Sebastian leaned into her with another kiss, catching her moan in his mouth. She hadn’t been wet when he started, but she was getting there rapidly.

"You know what I think," he said, breaking their kiss so he could speak. She looked up at him with a furtive but excited eyes and he smiled, just a little, at her expression. "I think it isn't the idea of being caught you like so much, Lissa, it's everyone else being oblivious." He slid a finger up and down her slit, feeling her growing hotter beneath his touch, teasing her to make her wetter. She shuddered at his touch and he repeated it, letting the moment stretch out between them.

"You like being smarter than everyone else, and you are, most of the time. And you like secrets. Secrets are what makes information dangerous, powerful. And you like information, knowledge," Sebastian told her. He felt his words having their intended effect, she was growing softer, hotter each time he spoke. He kissed the shell of her ear and then whispered into it, "Am I right?"

"You might be," she said, her voice hitching in the middle of her answer. His hand was working overtime now, circling her clit as it grew larger, Sebastian watching each pass of his fingertips play out in her expression. Her breath came in shallow pulls, and her eyes fluttered. She was just on the edge of close, and his hand worked on pure instinct alone. He had no idea what he was doing, he couldn’t say whether he sped up or slowed down, but he couldn’t look away from Lissa’s face, memorizing every tiny movement and stuttering exhalation.

Their conversation the night before hadn’t been about him getting her off, but rather Melissa’s somewhat secret fondness for hiding in plain sight. Only somewhat secret, because she had discovered this penchant with someone else, back in Ferelden and Sebastian was only mildly jealous of a person he’d never met and couldn’t have been, but had discovered this erotic amusement with Melissa. It was wrong and plain stupid to be jealous of anyone in her past when his own was so storied, but he wasn’t always as rational as he aspired to be. He took solace in the fact that he knew he was right, it was the idea that she knew something someone else didn’t, was the part that truly appealed to her. That he would give her an orgasm in the process made it perfect to her, and also that they both been complicit in the deception.

"Sebastian," she said and his name was just a whimper. He turned away for a just a moment, and saw Fabian blow out a plume of smoke so dense it obscured him from view. But even the laughter of his brothers and their obvious success wasn't enough to earn his attention for more than a moment. He went back to Lissa, panting and so close that he could see her shiver as she breathed in. He ran his lips over her neck, licked the place where her pulse throbbed beneath her skin.

She came like a paper tearing, and he knew just a split second before, capturing the shout on her lips by covering them with his own. He swallowed her exclamation and the moan that came after, feeling the vibrations of it in his teeth as she came wet, hot and hard around him hand. He didn't withdraw, didn't move away except to give her more space to breathe. Her hands clutched at him, kept him so close to her that most of their bodies were touching. Her kiss was all heat and molten desire, the heady combination he'd stirred in her.

He withdrew his hand, carefully, easing it out of her waistband of her leggings and from underneath her coat. His hand was slick and hot, and he carefully wiped it on his pants where it wouldn’t leave a noticeable mark. Sebastian kissed her again, but this time let it be more tender, waiting to see how she responded. She had the shaky, bright-eyed look of someone in a certain amount of disbelief, like she hadn't though that he'd actually take her up on the fantasy she'd shared with him the night before. Worry made him pull back his kisses for a second, but then she smiled up at him.

"I love you, Sebastian," she told him, and he felt himself flush. This was the part he found the most difficult, not making her come apart at the seams silently with thirty of his brothers just down the hall, but the actual intimacy. He wanted it to be easy, to fall from his lips and be the truth he had in his heart. It was sometimes. Other times, he panicked, worrying that he hadn't actually loved her enough before they'd crossed into a more physical relationship during the weekend of his formal. He was so unsure about all of this, even though the time for doubts was well past gone.

He'd talked to his therapist about this, and he knew that he really did love her, more than he could say. It's just that saying it felt pure, like it had no relation to what they'd just done. Love and sex weren’t intertwined in his head for the most part. Sex was physical, sweaty and wonderful, but not the same as love or intimacy. Reconciling that with their relationship was more difficult for him. Sebastian knew that it was only because she loved him that Lissa granted him such liberties and shared her desires with him.

"I love you too," he answered, giving her nose a kiss. Now that he wasn't so distracted by her fantasy, his own desires were clear, though what he could do about them wasn't. His erection was epic and he suddenly wished he wasn't wearing sweatpants. "Are you all right? Was it good?"

"It was perfect," she said, and he had the feeling she would have said more, but they were interrupted.

"St. Seb," Worthy called from down the hall, and Sebastian bit back a groan. Worthy had a crush on Lissa and managed to tell her nearly every time she ran into him at the house. Worthy, who was generally decent otherwise, had become something between an annoyance and someone he was going to need to set straight soon. Worthy walked towards them and Sebastian took a half step back from Melissa giving her some more space, but not too much. "They packed a bowl for you, President. You should definitely get in there before the freshmen start slobbering all over it," Worthy said. He turned to Melissa with a wide smile and asked, "Hawke, do you smoke?"

"I haven't in a while, but it's like riding a bike, isn't it?" she answered, surprising him. Sebastian shot her a sidelong glance but she was busy picking up her bag.

"Leave it. You go on and I'll take it up to my room. You want me to take your hoodie?" he asked.

She shook her head, tugging her shirt down self-consciously, though the movement was unnecessary. She started down the hall towards Worthy, who had wisely remained a few steps back from Sebastian. He picked up the bag and held it in front of him, low enough to hide the tent his cock was making. Time seemed to move backwards as Worthy and Melissa took tiny steps towards the common room. Both of them turned to wait for him, but he waved a hand. "You two go on. I'll be back down in a minute."

"Do you want me to go with you?" she asked, and he shook his head at her, understanding that she wasn't offering assistance taking up her bag. That was another thing that he'd been working on recently, the imbalance of gratification in their relationship, or at least that's the way his therapist put it. Sebastian was the happy recipient of a great many blow jobs from Melissa since they'd gone away together, yet he didn't reciprocate all of the time. He was working on that imbalance and how to correct it.

He was very much a work in progress.

"No, go on. But we should talk later. I have an idea I want to talk to you about," he said, and she nodded before she and Worthy turned back towards the common room. He heard his brothers greet her when she walked in, and more than one asked if she wanted a beer or was hungry. She was popular at KSE, and not just because of him. He smiled, then grimaced as he accidentally grazed his dick with an errant swing of her bag.

He needed to get out of view of people until he could get his cock to realize that it wasn't going to be tended to tonight, at least, not right now. With her bag strategically in front of him, Sebastian mounted the stairs and knowing how he was, left himself a note to talk to Melissa about graduation after they’d both sobered up.

#

He didn’t actually smoke that much. Once was really enough for him, because trying to make the smoke traverse the full length of the pipe required everyone to breathe deeply and he really hated sharing bongs with this many people. Sebastian didn’t want to get too fucked up, he needed to study tonight and work on some projects, but apparently Melissa didn’t.

There was something he’d observed in people before, when he used to live in Starkhaven. There were people he always saw. Sebastian was always out, he was at the best parties or restaurants or at the most exclusive clubs or places to be. He generally saw the same people, or a version of the same faces in the crowds in every place. When he did see a new face, or a person he knew but not well, it was pretty easy to figure out where they belonged. People who came into new or temporary money were cautious until they weren’t, and then they almost always overdid it. Leeches that used more wealthy friends were always profligate with money that wasn’t their own. Foreign money wound up trying to make Starkhaven more like their homelands more often than not, trying to recreate some good time they’d had before they’d went away.

Lissa was the first type, the one who wasn’t used to it and overdid it out of a lack of practice and too much stress. She smoked too much and wound up in his bed, giggling and perpetually hungry while Sebastian tried to look over some of his reading. She’d already eaten dinner with them, and now she was picking at his leftovers, wishing they were cookies. Talking to her when she was like this wasn’t going to yield any positive result, so he’d wait and take care of her stupid, giggly, high ass until she came down. The book may as well have been written in ancient Arcanum for all the sense it was making, and it was giving him a headache. He got up from his desk, stretched, and went over to the closet. Off of the top shelf he pulled down a new-ish box of chocolate covered cookies; he’d bought them a while back after Fenris visited and ate all of his snacks.

“Here,” he said, tossing the package onto the bed. She jumped and didn’t catch the box, flinching as it came to land a good eight inches away from her.

“Cookies!”

“Help yourself,” he said, knowing that she’d eat most of them. At best he’d find a bunch of broken cookies and crumbs leftover.

“Ugh, Sebastian these are mint,” she said, grimacing at him. “Mint makes me sick.”

“I forgot about that.” He turned back to the top of his closet and stood on tiptoe. There wasn’t anything else up there, but he knew where he could find some. Lucky had a sweet tooth that was legendary, even here. “Let me go see if Lucky has something,” he said, and was surprised when she got up off the bed herself.

“I’ll go. He owes me anyway,” she said, not bothering to elaborate on just what that might mean. Curious, he followed her to Lucky’s room, where he opened the door and Lissa, usually so calm and controlled, surprised him. She tickled Lucky, who acquiesced right away to her torture, giggling and sputtering as she drew her hands back but kept them crooked in his direction. Sebastian had no idea how she’d even found out Lucky was ticklish, but she had and was determined to use it for her own ends. Sebastian watched with a wry eyebrow raised as his girlfriend tickled Lucky into submission. Lucky actually flinched when she raised her hands again.

“I’ve come for sweets,” Melissa told him, and he let them both further into his room. Lucky was nearly as baked as she was, and was still giddy from her tickling onslaught. His bed was littered with the remains of candy, cookies and what looked like it had once been a bag of popcorn.

“You only want me for my stash. It’s in my dresser. Third drawer,” he said, pointing to one on the bottom left side. She bent to retrieve the food, and both him and Lucky watched her as she bent over. When he realized Lucky was unashamedly staring at Lissa’s ass, Sebastian punched him lightly in the arm. Lucky grinned at him ruefully as he rubbed at his arm. He wasn’t possessive, but he wasn’t about to let one of his brothers openly ogle his girlfriend either.

He knew they did, that was part of the appeal of having Lissa around in the house. She was pretty, and she was smart, and there were plenty of guys other than Worthy that were more than ready to ask her out if they ever broke up. But they were never crass about how much they liked her, and Sebastian tried to be diplomatic about it, if it didn’t bother Liss, then it didn’t bother him. But there were times where he wanted to give into the weird, caveman impulse inside of her and fight every guy that looked her way.

Maybe he should add that to the list of things to talk to his therapist about.

Lissa came up with quite a lot of chocolate and some tiny cakes, threw one of the cakes at Lucky. “These are so good,” she said, stuffing her own cake in her mouth.

“Nadia and I broke up, you know,” Lucky said, and Sebastian bit back a sigh. He couldn’t handle maudlin and stoned tonight. M _aker, please have mercy on your humble servant who resides with a group of idiots._

“What happened?” Melissa asked, sitting down on his bed. She swept the debris onto the floor with an arm, and Sebastian decided to make himself at home. He hadn’t smoked, but he knew Lucky had beer. Sure enough a peek in his mini-fridge yielded a decent bottle and he opened it as Lucky whined to his girlfriend.

“I’m not sure what went wrong. I thought after the formal things were good.”

“Have you asked her?”

Sebastian tuned them out for the span of his beer, during which Lissa and Lucky devoured a package of cookies and the remaining tiny cakes. He had to get her out of here before she realized how much she’d eaten and forced him to go do hot yoga with her. He drew the line at making himself stretch uncomfortably and profusely sweat, but she and Isabela actually liked to do it. If she didn’t get something real to eat, she’d regret it later, and probably wake him up to get her some food. As President of KSE, he had the access and keys to the food that only the Vice-President and steward also had. If they didn’t lock it up, they’d blow their whole food budget in a matter of weeks.

“Lucky, I hope it works out for you,” he said, standing with a symphony of joints popping from his sojourn on the floor. “But I’ve gotta get something to eat. Lissa is probably hungry too.”

“Oh I am, now that you mention it,” she said, getting up and using him to lever herself off the ground. He took her hand and helped her up, and she put a hand on his chest and looked up at him, smiling. Her gaze was less bleary than before, but she wasn’t as spacey or giggling. That was a start. Sebastian gave her a quick kiss, and shuffled her out the door, calling his thanks to Lucky for the snacks and the beer he hadn’t exactly asked permission to drink.

“It’s snowing,” Lissa said as they passed a window. The night outside was cold and dark, but giant white flakes were falling in lazy circles as from the sky. A quick peek at his phone told him that there was more on the way, and when he told Melissa that, she shivered and his arms instinctively went around her. “At least it isn’t as cold here as it was in Ferelden.”

“It snows either a lot or not at all in Starkhaven. The Minanter River overflows more than anything. Whenever there’s a heavy winter snowfall, the spring melt makes the river overflow.” He sighed, thinking about it. There was precious little details about his upbringing that he’d bothered to share with anyone in Kirkwall, but Lissa was ever patient with him. “I used to be so upset when there wasn’t snow as a kid, I always wanted to go out and ride my sled. I had one of those big things with the rails on the bottom and the curved part in the front.”

“A toboggan?” she asked, laughing. “I haven’t seen one of those in years. I always wanted one, but never got it no matter how much I asked for it”

“I miss that old thing. It might have been in my nursery, but I’m almost certain it was donated after a while. I never used it once I hit about thirteen or so, but I wanted it when I first came here. It snows so much more here, but that’s from being south and the ocean effect, I’d guess.”

“There’s always snow in Ferelden. And cold. I much prefer it here.”

“In Kirkwall or in the stairwell?” he asked, leaning in to whisper the question in her ear. Melissa leaned back into him.

“In your arms,” she said and he rewarded her with a kiss on the top of her head. The sweet moment was ruined seconds later when his stomach, full of beer and not much else, rumbled against her back.

“Let’s find some food,” Sebastian said, and reluctantly let go of her warmth so they could head back downstairs.

#

The next morning he was up early to get at the homework he hadn’t accomplished the night before. His first class today was at noon, so he wasn’t entirely too worried about getting everything done; it wasn’t even eight yet when he hit the shower. After they ate pizza, Lissa had gone to bed pretty early and he with her, preferring to be warm under the blanket with her and let his homework wait a little longer. Sleepily, she’d tried to fool around with him, belatedly asking about the state of his cock. He assured her it was just fine, and that he’d rather sleep. That was only partially true, but doing anything while she was still even a little fucked up was out of bounds, so he’d just settled on sleep.

Warm water prickled at his skin, waking him up thoroughly. He might go to the gym after he finished his homework, the thought of running flat out appealed to Sebastian that morning. There was a severity in it, a pleasant bleakness that came over him when he ran. He just ran and nothing else mattered in that moment, and his mind was free of worries and problems and memories. It was the same sort of mindlessness he liked when he showered too, and that morning he was halfway through his routine, not paying attention to the time when Melissa came into the bathroom. She was up earlier than he’d expected.

When he was dry and half-dressed, she was sitting on his bed pulling on her socks. Last night she’d worn one of his shirts to sleep in, but for the day she had nothing to wear except the clothes she’d worn yesterday. He’d have to take her home, and he was mildly annoyed that he wasn’t going to be do his homework right away as he’d planned. When she looked up at him, she smiled, and the annoyance that had flared in him the moment before melted away as Sebastian went over to the bed and pushed her back, crawling on top of her.

Melissa kissed him, softly at first, but then more soundly as he returned her affection. He hadn’t shaved yet and the scruff of his stubble brushed against her face as they kissed. She swatted him away when she tired of her kisses abrading her face, stilling his kisses as she captured his chin.

“I love you, Sebastian. I know last night wasn’t fun for you, but I don’t indulge often.”

“I love you, Lissa, and it’s fun to see you torture my brothers. How did you know Lucky was ticklish?”

“He told me at the formal. ‘I’m wildly ticklish, and then I can’t stop laughing,’ as if that’s the sort of information you should just hand out,” she said, scoffing. He had to laugh. “But thanks for taking care of me,” she added, her tone turning softer. “I mean it. I would only have done that someplace where I felt safe. As ridiculous as they are, I like your brothers.”

Sebastian kissed her in response, but it wasn’t leading, just happy. Her trust meant so much to him, and in the last eighteen hours, she’d shown a lot of it in him. But it was over now, and the giant bong had to be put away for another time. He still had work to do this morning and she was already dressed again. She probably needed to get home soon, so he army crawled off of her and the bed, letting his feet touch the cold floor. When he looked out of the window, it was still snowing though there was little accumulation from the night before. The same drowsy snowflakes fell, but they were perhaps a little smaller this morning than they’d been the night before. When he turned back to her, Sebastian leaned over and kissed Melissa’s hand.

“I won’t see you tonight,” she told him, standing up as Sebastian slipped on a long sleeved shirt. “I’m working and then Isabela and I are going out.”

“But we can go out to dinner the night after, if you’d like. I’m not busy,” he said, then checked his phone to make sure he was free. He was.

“Maybe. If I get this group project work done,” she said, then slid on her boots. She always made sure he knew of her workload, but it hadn’t stopped her from going out whenever he’d asked. He wondered just how much she work she was doing in her classes to free up her time to spend with him. Unlike his schedule, hers was actually filled with difficult classes. He had two, and figured that was enough for his second to last semester. Melissa had probably needed the respite of the night before, even if it had been unexpected. He’d have to take her someplace nice to show how much he appreciated that she did make time for him.

“You wanted to talk last night,” she said, reminding him. “What about?”

He gave a baleful look out the window and answered, “Summer. About my apartment building. The construction and everything.”

“Tell me in the car. We can stop and get coffee if it’s going to take a while,” she said, and held out her hand to him. Sebastian took it and let her lead him out of the house into a day gray with snowfall, but somehow still so bright.


End file.
